The Easiest WordPress CRM Plugin – Zero BS CRM

Summary:

Zero BS CRM has been around for about a year and is already making big moves in the WordPress customer relationship management market. The main CRM plugin is, as the title suggests, fantastically easy to use, but it’s also cheap, or free.

In this post we’ll look at their latest offering (v2.0 launched this month), and show you why this plugin is essential for your entrepreneur’s toolkit.

The reason we need a CRM

Chances are you’ve either learned this the hard way, or you’re yet to learn it. Loosing customers sucks. Mismanaging, or making errors in our customer relationships is the single easiest way to go bust.

As business has moved into the digital realm, so to have a lot of our customer relationships. Selling online means we often neglect our customer relations, largely because the exist only digitally, flying through cables in the form of 0’s and 1’s – they’re not tangible.

Whether we’re aware of our customer connections or not can make the difference between hundreds of rave reviews or handfuls of refunds.

The CRM then, has become the essential backbone of the modern entrepreneurs’ toolkit. Without a simple way to manage our communications with customers, we’re left herding post-it notes around our offices. We need a good CRM.

Check out the ZBS Customer Relationship Lifecycle!

The simplest wins…

In the search for a good software, it’s actually not the solution with the most features that usually wins out, it’s the app with the least friction. Zero BS CRM is the simplest DIY CRM for entrepreneurs, ever. This plugin installs in minutes (the main core of the thing is free), and “just works”.

When you have to use something everyday excess features just become a drag.

Take this beautiful dashboard for example:

This dashboard is clean, it has only what’s needed to keep your business kicking ass. This is Sales Dashboard – an extension for Zero BS CRM. Again – this is a few minute install – then you’re analysing your client sales like the pros.

… but if this had 5 more options, extra stuff – would you care? So why pay for all these extra features? (Some of the big hosted CRMs are $250 per month, or more! It makes no sense when plugins like ZBS exist.

What makes ZBS the easiest CRM to use?

Anyone who’s tested the big-brand CRM’s knows that there are some super-complex options out there. So to compare apples to apples, let’s talk through the install / setup for these CRM options.

First up – the common SaaS CRMs (hosted for you).

… The biggest CRM in the market place suggests it takes seconds to set up their CRM. We tested – and it took us nearly half an hour. Their setup wizard had 10 pages, from giving your details to choosing CRM “modules” and working your way through other over-emphasised business jingoist language.

Next, ZBS:

… Zero BS CRM for WordPress took us 4 minutes. The plugin is on WordPress.org here, so you can just load up your WordPress click “add plugin”, search it up and hit “install”. After that – their “super easy install wizard” was actually what it said. 4 pages and then a dancing “finished” bear. Simple, easy!

The main core in ZBS isn’t everything you might need – (though the free plugin covers most freelancers, and small businesses) – so you may want to add “extensions” which are power-ups (big-brand CRM’s often call them CRM Modules). We added 5 of these in 1 minute – simply uploading them via FTP! You can get all 8 of these extensions, and access to all future extensions as part of the Entrepreneurs’ CRM bundle.

View the full CRM in this helpful walkthrough video:

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After everything’s installed you’re basically done! We used the WooCommerce Sync Extension in order to automatically sync our WooCommerce sales into Zero BS CRM, and though it probably took 10 minutes to sync all the data, we were then instantly shown our sales dash. Epic.

Here are the six reasons why we gladly give ZBS the title of “the easiest CRM”:

There are no limits – no maximum customers, no maximum invoices etc. makes for zero frustration

It’s in WordPress, which we love

Extensions actually add value, not excess features, and make this a DIY CRM that actually works

Turn everything on/off – you can turn off stuff you don’t need in the free CRM core

Entrepreneurs opt for easy

The trend seems to suggest that the successful entrepreneurs often opt for easy. Silicon valley has been steadily producing software which helps us do what we need to do, quicker, easier, more professionally. Though this plugin comes from England, it’s got all the refinement of something like Baremetrics, Buffer, or Google docs.

We need simpler software as entrepreneurs, which still works, because business online is competitive, and those who do, often win. A CRM is essential, but it doesn’t need gimmicky add-ons that cost you more than your sales returns. Apps need to provide ROI.

Zero BS CRM is a year old this year, and with it’s v2.0 launch, it’s easily the most exciting WordPress CRM option out there – go and check out the launch page – and expect a follow-up post from us in the near future, because they’re still developing day-in day-out on this, so it’s only going to get better!